The reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe

SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE

mining industries are again called to life. Serbia is now the only European country where gold is extracted by a Franco-Belgian Company at Neresnica (and let us say, by the by, that its machinery plant was supplied by a London engineering house). The copper mines of Bor are valued at a hundred million pounds, and are really among the richest in the world. The Serbian mines were already yielding gold, copper, silver, coal, antimony, zine, but owing to the searcity of capital this mineral wealth has only just begun to be exploited. Before 1912 mineral ores within Serbian territory were discovered in six hundred areas, and were worked at no more than fifty places. But the richest mining districts of medizval Serbia—Novo Brdo and Kratovoincorporated with Serbia after the Balkan Wars in 1912 are still in that ruined state in which they were left by the Turks. Bosnia, too, is as rich as Serbia in mineral wealth, having in addition salt and iron mines already exploited. In this direction may be found the greatest scope for British enterprise and investment of capital. In connection with mine-working enterprises it is well to mention that Serbia, as well as Bosnia, abounds in waterfalls; and hydro-electrical power for labour-saving purposes could be easily and cheaply obtained in any mining or industrial area.

The fierce alternations of winter and summer, with snow to moisten the land at the beginning

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